This is an activity during Solar Week, a twice-yearly event in March and October during which classrooms are able to interact with scientists studying the Sun. Outside of Solar Week, information, activities, and resources are archived and available...(View More) online at any time. This is an activity about telling time using the Sun. Learners will create a solar shadow tool and use it to chart changes in the Sun's altitude through the seasons. This activity is scheduled to occur during Thursday of Solar Week. The activity requires access to a sunny outdoor location over the course of several days, weeks, or months, as well as materials and equipment such as pine board, dowel rod piece, drill and drill bit, saw, bulls-eye level, small nails, and either wood glue or hot glue.(View Less)

In this activity, teams of learners will model how scientists and engineers design and build spacecraft to collect, store, and transmit data to Earth. Teams will design a system to store and transmit topographic data of the Moon and then analyze...(View More) that data and compare it to data collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.(View Less)

This is an activity about magnetic fields. Learners will study magnetic fields at four separate stations: examining magnetic fields generated by everyday items, mapping out a magnetic field using a compass, creating models of Earth's and Jupiter's...(View More) magnetic fields, and observing aurora produced by magnetic fields on both planets. This activity is part of Explore! Jupiter's Family Secrets, a series designed to engage children in space and planetary science in libraries and informal learning environments. (Note: the activity was adapted for informal education from Magnetic Globe, by Sonoma State University, and Exploring Magnetism, by Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley)(View Less)

This is an activity that compares the magnetic field of the Earth to the complex magnetic field of the Sun. Using images of the Earth and Sun that have magnets attached in appropriate orientations, learners will use a handheld magnetic field...(View More) detector to observe the magnetic field of the Earth and compare it to that of the Sun, especially in sunspot areas. For each group of students, this activity requires use of a handheld magnetic field detector, such as a Magnaprobe or a similar device, a bar magnet, and ten small disc magnets.(View Less)

This activity uses rain and flood events in the Midwest to engage students in an exploration of the collection, comparison, analysis and utilization of rainfall data. Students will access online precipitation data from both a ground-based station...(View More) (the Community Collaborative Rain Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) network) and a satellite (the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)). Explicit instructions are provided to allow students to graph, map and analyze that data. Instructions are also provided for setting up a school-based rain gauge to gather local rainfall data for analysis.(View Less)

In conjunction with discussions on atmospheric CO2, timescales, and proxy data, students will make, dissect, and analyze an ice core. The activity allows students to study changes in Earth’s atmospheric composition and temperature on millennial to...(View More) orbital timescales. The lesson includes instructions for making the ice cores (requires up to a week), worksheets, resources and a short assessment.(View Less)

This planetarium show is designed to engage visitors directly in activities and demonstrations, and is optimized for group sizes of 25 to 70 people. Show content includes general planet-finding techniques (Doppler, astrometric, etc.), an audience...(View More) activity about the transit method of extrasolar planet discovery, NASA Kepler mission, and Johannes Kepler's work. It is 50-minutes long, but modular, so that it can be adjusted for shorter lengths (suggestions for 30-minute and 40-minute versions are provided in the script). The script, images, movies and music are available for free download at the website provided.(View Less)

In this lesson, students will be introduced to how the Doppler effect changes our perception of wavelengths of sound (pitch) and light (color). Students will model how astronomers use the line spectra of stars to identify elements in the stars and...(View More) the speeds of galaxies in the universe. Requires some special equipment for spectral analysis and a darkened room for viewing spectra. Suggestions are included for introducing the Doppler Effect for students unfamiliar with this concept. This activity is part of the Cosmic Times teachers guide and is intended to be used in conjunction with the 1929 Cosmic Times Poster.(View Less)

In this investigation, students use "point-source" light, light meters, and graphing software to quantify the reduction in light over distance. Through careful measurement of light received at several distances, students discover the best fit of the...(View More) data is the inverse square rule. Using this rule, students then calculate the distance between the light source and the light meter at random placements. Finally, students extend this principle to model the manner in which distances to Cepheid variable stars are measured. The distance between the Cepheid (here the light source) and the Earth (the light meter) can be determined by comparing the output of the source to the amount of light received. An historic scientific breakthrough occurred when the period-luminosity relationship of Cepheids was quantified throughout the early 1900s. This breakthrough allowed astronomers to gain a more correct understanding of the dimensions of our galaxy and the universe beyond. This activity is part of the "Cosmic Times" teacher's guide and is intended to be used in conjunction with the 1929 Cosmic Times Poster.(View Less)

This quantitative experiment involves lab teams in comparing a sample of room air with one of the greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, or methane - and measuring their heat capacity. The activity requires an infrared heat source, such...(View More) as a heat lamp, two 2L beverage bottles, #4 one hole rubber stoppers, and a thermometer or temperature probe, volumetric flasks, a graduated cylinder, and tubing. Nitrous oxide can be obtained from a dentist, methane from gas jets in a chemistry lab, and becomes CO² can be generated using vinegar and baking soda. A worksheet guides student calculations of heat capacity of the different samples. The investigation s is supported by the textbook, Climate Change, part of the Global System Science, an interdisciplinary course for high school students that emphasizes how scientists from a wide variety of fields work together to understand significant problems of global impact.(View Less)